I wired it all up last night and fired it up today, it starts up great, first try, timing is set, but one problem, it won't rev up! Any ideas, I assume that its a mechanical problem so hopefully I wont have to hunt down wires and such. What do you guys think I should look for? Chris
ill try to rev her up and it just dies, but if I let off the throttle it will come back, and if I rev it hi it kind of back fires. I'm gonna try to figure out whats up, but it never hurts to have a few opinions. Chris
Hmmm. Kinda sounds like a timing issue. Could be in the carb aswell. Are you sure you got all the vacuum hoses hooked up right? Got any vacuum leaks? When you timed the engine, was the vacuum advance vacuum line pulled off and capped? What's known about the carb? Is the accelerator pump working? (squitrs fuel into the carb venturis when throttled) There's a few things to check out.
hmm... I didnt pull the advance line when I timed it, DUH! wheres my head, I'll look more into the carb, but now its running a little wierder, it revs up and drops down the revs up and drops down at idle, then when I give it juice it pops through the exhaust like loud back fires, I can see I still have some fiddling to do. Chris
ok I plugged the vaccum advance line and now it runs fine, but when I pug it back in it runs like ****, any ideas why this would occur? Chris
Your distributor has a slider plate which allows the vaccum advance arm to pull it to a different position when vaccum drops as the throttle plates are opened quickly from idle. Your slider is worn out. It will need rebuilt or more likely replacement of the distributor. It also sounds like you have a couple spark plug wires crossed, recheck your firing order.
I'll look into it, and I'll go over the firing order once more. Another question, if tranny fluid is dripping off the cross member where do you think it would be coming from? It only leaks when the motor is running. Chris
I wish I had that problem mine leaks sitting oh well check the fluid cooler lines may be leaking. Check to make sure you are using ported vaccum not full manifold vaccum ( just a different place on the carb) What is your timing set to? with the line disconnected does it advance when you rev it? connected it should advance even more. What have you done to it rebuild engine. did you replace the timming gearset.
Check the following areas for transmission fluid leaks. Transmission cooling lines. Check the dipstick tube O ring. Check the modulator valve for leaks. Check the pan gasket, converter seal, and speedometer cable seal.
Whoa! Hold on there... I noticed a couple descrepancies on the vacuum timing discussion. (not picking on anyone, intentionally ) Actually when vacuum is present, it should be 'advancing' and timing not retarding it as long as it's hooked up right. Now this goes for both single and dual diaphram advance units. When I say advance unit, I'm talking about the device on the front of the distributor that has either one or two vacuum lines running to it. Now here's the catch- the majority of the mustang II's have what's called a dual diaphram advance, easily identified by the advance unit having two vacuum ports. The forward most port, usually pointing tward the radiator in some fashion, is the "advance" part of the unit. The other port, usually pointing tward the hood, is called the "retard" part. The retard part of the unit runs off of 'manifold' vaccum aka- constant vacuum at idle. But the trip from the manifold to the retard side of the advance is accompanied by temperature sensed valves that are located on the intake and T-stat housing. These valves control when the 'retard' is applied in relation to engine temperature. On the 'advance' side normally you only have one line running directly from a port on the carb. I can't remember for sure, but I know I've seen this line Tee'd before and a third line running to another component. Just can't remember what it was. This line runs off what is called ported vacuum aka- vacuum present when carb is throttled, but NOT at idle. If you do have vacuum present at this port and you're sure it is the correct port, then you have internal carb issues and the carb will have to be repaired/rebuilt. Now since you're in the state of washington, your smog system is allowed to be non-op so to make your troubleshooting easier, plug and cap the retard line at the manifold vacuum tree (usually at the back behind the carb) make sure the advance line has a straight shot (nothing else feeding vacuum off of it) to the distributor and that it's pluged into the proper port (on an autolie/motorcraft carb- on RH side (pass) just below and in front of the choke housing, may be blocked a little by a heat plate) No it should not. If the carb is properly set up there should be NO extra advance unless you throttle the carb. If you do then your primaries are open to far to attain proper idle. If you can isolate where exactly the tranny leak is comming from we could probably give you a better idea as to what is the villian. The torque converter seal is probably the worst and last part you want to leak because you'll have to divorce the tranny and engine to fix it. The rest of the scenarios the other members described are not difficult at all to fix. Hope I didn't bombard you with too much info. I just like to breifly explain how it works before getting into how to fix it, to help you to better understand what you're doing.
cool, no you didn't bombard me, I like to learn about mechanics. It looks like I'll be a little busy with the advancing problem, but as for the tranny leak it turned out it was just the cooler line wasnt tight, so I simply took it off teflon taped it and put it back on tight enough. My motor is from '74 and it only has one vaccum line, it also has an edlebrock intake and 4brl holley. I took out the motor to swap it into my new body, so all I did was clean it up and re-paint it, it had a recent over haul so it was good to go. I set the timing for 10 degree advance. When I wired it up though I did it wrong off the plug that comes off the distibutor (the plastic plug broke so I had 3 stray wires) I switched the 2 colored wires by mistake and it through sparks from the solenoid when I attempted to start the motor. Could that have affected anything? thanks for all the help, Chris
I set the timing for 10 degree advance. A 74 302 should be timed at 6-8 degrees BTDC, not ATDC, if it's basicly a stock mill.
It's my guess the accelerator pump isn't working. It's also my guess there is something plugging the high speed ports. What you describe is classic leanout. I've seen awfully screwed up timing, the engines ran like crap but they still ran. How long has this engine been sitting?
My bad Z! Don't know how I interpeted that wrong. As I was typing I was thinkin to myself, how you could have got that backwards, cause I was sure you knew that! Appearantly I was the one with my head in my pooper.
